my big giant math equation.

uh, seriously. my brain is fried. i have yet to accomplish anything significant in planning this little shindig, but i feel exhausted just thinking of stuff. i have been supringly good about setting some type of order to this. here's what i have so far:
(i'm going to start setting monthly deadlines for myself. i work for the newspaper & deadlines and me seem to be pretty good friends)

1. a friend of ours (aka groomsman) just graduated from art school and is designing a uniform drawing that will hopefully find a home on our website & our invites. i've got a few other ideas for it but we'll see how much i like it. kidding -- of course we'll LOVE it. he's talented. it's free. that's all i need. here's some of the inspiration for the drawing:

source: greenweddingshoes

2. while he's doing that, i delegated to the mister that our wedding site needs to be created. i'm 99% positive that he hasn't done anything to get this accomplished, but it's whatever, due date is the beginning of august!

3. i need to go shopping for something to wear for our engagement shoot w/ matt. i've fallen in love w/ so many adorable engagement pics & i don't know what i want. half of me wants for us to dress casual and 'us', but the other half kind of wants to buy something really cute that we otherwise couldn't justify spending money on. only getting married once means only getting engaged once. only getting engaged once means only one engagement shoot!! it's likely that i'll find a middle ground and the pictures will turn out just fine. our photographer takes amazing photos & i'm so excited that we will be his first wedding shoot. i'm not nervous at all because i totally trust our choice.

side note: planning has been kinda like a big math problem. i just add little things together until i realize what needs to be done. example: completed design + engagement shoot + website goes live = save the dates are ready to send out!)

3. we've already decided on postcard STD's to keep postage costs low while we can. i'm sure we can whip up something quick & cute... and thanks to vistaprint, CHEAP!

4. while all of this is being done & before we get too far ahead in the planning process, i've realized that we should probably choose our bridal party. this has been talked about pretty often because i wasn't sure who to pick. j on the other hand had this figured out months ago... before he even asked me to marry him. it's not that i have an overwhelming amount of friends (quite the opposite), but the few girls i talk to are so spread out that i'm not sure if it would work. i always imagined my bridal party would be a tight knit group of mutual friends. clearly not going to be the case. i also have a few girls that while we don't talk as often as i'd like, we still had good times and i'd like for them to be a part of our day (and maybe become closer again). for these reasons & a few others, we will be having a bridal party of four. justin's brother, matt, will be the best man & corey, our designer, will be dude #2. i'll be asking my cousin, amy, to be moh (though since she lives 500 miles away, i won't expect much from her-- just her support the day of will be plenty!!) when we visit in july. hopefully she says yes, because then it's back to square 1. the second lovely lady will be j's little cousin, emma, who is 9 years old. she is one of my favorite people in the world and i can't wait for her to be in our wedding.

i will also be asking a few select girls from past & present to be my 'non-bridesmaids'. i will be asking (probably) in july. my non-bridesmaids will get color swatches of dress choices and will be on their own to choose whatever dress they want. they will not walk down the isle or have to carry flowers, but i will be giving them all wearable gifts. with the coordinating colors, they will stand out and this will be especially obvious in our photos. they're not required to help at all w/ the wedding planning, unless they want to. they do, however, have to listen to my complaints along the way. more details to come once i've asked. :)

future moh -- amy & i last summer.

j's cousin, natalie, she'll be three on our wedding day. one of our flower girls.

me & emma last summer.

the best man & baby elizabeth (j's other cousin) who will be flower girl #2. we don't have a ring bearer, so we'll decide which of these pretty girls will bring us rings too. baby bessie will be two on the big day.

j & corey. don't ask me why he's doing that.

so there. i think we're doing pretty well so far. since we've hit the one year mark, i'll start posting on specifics as we get even closer. (i know, a year isn't much to some people... but we've already been engaged for seven months and it feels like seven days!!!)